The Business of Being Born

I told myself that I would wait until it came out to purchase to watch, but I am just so impatient I could not wait.

I literally just clicked out of netflix and I needed to articulate my reaction to this film to someone, anyone, and since my husband is dead asleep and my 3 month old son wouldn’t really react too much, I thought this might just be the perfect place.

I will start out by saying, going into my labor with my son I was very naive and very sick. I was cornered into an induction without really having too much experience with induction, seeing as I had never had a client or a relative that had an induction. I thought it was my best bet. But my best bet landed me in the OR with a C-Section and a emotionally tragic birth.

I will start out by saying at 18 years old in 2003 I had surgery done on my cervix because of pre cancer. Because of that pre cancer, my only real option I was presented with when I learned I was pregnant was an OB/GYN. Being 21 at the time, and really “fresh” to births (I had only worked postpartum) as a doula at that point. I went along with it all. Not really realizing I had other options.

I was told at 12 weeks gestation that I would have an ultrasound (transvaginal) every 2 weeks till 36 weeks gestation so they can monitor my cervix and make sure it was growing and that it was staying closed. I thought, Oh that’s cool. More ultrasounds, I will find out what the baby is faster, see him more often. Ok cool. I should have turned and ran right then and there.

Fast forward to November 11th 2007 (36 weeks, my EDD was 12/13) My husband gets a phone call from a family member saying we need to get to their home immediately, his younger brother (23) is “not doing so good” so we get in the car and RUSH there.

We get there to learn he has passed away. We both felt our legs give out from underneath us.

From that day forward, I could not keep much food down. By December 8th I had lost 15 pounds.

At the urging of my OB/GYN (which by this point in time I had dubbed The Wicked Witch because of all the problems, confrontations, and arguments I had gotten into with her) I agreed to an induction on December 11th.

6am December 11th, I get up and head to the hospital. I get there and they hook me up to the 3 million machines and see that I am contacting on my own. Not very intense, but I am contracting. My OB comes in at 7am, immediately puts me on Pit, and goes on her way.

Shows back up around 10am, I am 4cm dialated, and in bad shape. She breaks my water.

By 1030 I demand an epidural. Everything that I had been striving for had gone right out the window because of those 2 words. Induction and Pitocin.

1130, no progress.

130, no progress

245, no progress.

My OB says, she will be back at 330pm, if there is no more progress, we are booking an OR. I should have stopped her right then and there. But with no advocate by my side (looking back I wish I would have had a doula) and in a lot of pain, I basically agreed.

330pm she comes back and theres no progress.

She proceeds to tell me my cervix stopped dialating near the area with all the scarred tissue from my previous surgery, and she has seen this happen before. All with C-Sections as the end result. I cried being wheeled into the OR.

The only thing keeping me semi sane was my husband by my side and knowing that soon my son will be here safe and healthy and that was all that mattered to me at that point.

Fast forward to March 2nd, 2008. 2:07am (current time)

I am balling my eyes out knowing that my birth was cheated (at least how I feel) and that all those feelings and emotions I saw and watched, were what I always wished for. What I imagined my birth to be since I was a little girl. It had been eating at me since he was born, but it really just hit me hard.

It makes me even more passionate about starting an ICAN chapter.

It makes me even more passionate about having a VBAC, NOT in a hospital.

I wish I could take the rest of the raw emotions I am feeling right now and actually spell them out but I think at this point I am just so far gone that no matter how I talk or write about my birth, I will never feel completely content with it.

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By: Anonymous

You are not alone. During the screening in our local town, a woman had a very “severe” reaction to the film. She was so angry and cried. Kept asking the panel WHY?!! BoBB revealed truth to her. Ladies don’t take kindly to being deceived, she certailny didn’t and neither should you. I pray you find your voice in activism and that your voice is one heard and acted on by many.gzsirsu

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